The Old Town in Lyon’s 5th arrondissement is a showcase of the city’s strength. Here, things still stand almost exactly how they stood when silk weavers and wealthy merchants walked the town’s cobbled streets back in the Middle Ages.
The 11th Century choir school is still there, and so is the 15th Century inn. A door frame in a building dating back to the 13th Century is sagging, one side of it higher than the other, but still intact.
Built at the foot of a hill, history feels like it’s literally stacked on top of itself in this town, weaved together by narrow steps, dark alleyways, and the feature that sets Vieux Lyon apart from other European medieval cities: its traboules.